In recent years, near field wireless communication methods such as near field communication (NFC), infrared data association (IrDA), or TransferJet (registered trademark) have begun to be used. The standardization of the NFC is proceeding in NFC Forum and three modes including a bidirectional communication mode that performs bidirectional communication, a reader/writer mode that reads and writes an NFC tag, and a card emulation mode that operates as a NFC tag are defined.
As an application that uses the NFC bidirectional communication mode, a protocol for transmitting and receiving wireless parameter information, which is required to perform handover from the NFC to a different wireless communication mode such as a wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi), is standardized. By performing the handover using the NFC, it is possible to establish a high speed communication path such as Wi-Fi only by disposing two machines closely to each other and to transmit and receive a large quantity of data.
Further, even in European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), a standard of the NFC is defined. ETSI standardizes a host controller interface (HCI) for communicating between an NFC communication chip and a host unit including a universal integrated circuit control (UICC). By using the HCI, the NFC communication chip and the host unit can be separated into different integrated circuit (IC) chips.
With this, for example, in a case of using a file system of the NFC tag in the UICC, the UICC is activated only by using an induced electromotive force of the NFC to be operated as an NFC tag. However, since the electric energy which can be supplied with the induced electromotive force of the NFC is small, generally, the induced electromotive force is used to locally supply a power to the UICC, and the power needs to be supplied by using the internal power supply when the host unit of the machine is activated.
As an example to separate the communication chip and the host unit, a configuration may be considered in which the NFC tag is mounted in the UICC, and a protocol stack concerning is mounted in the bidirectional communication mode and the reader/writer mode is mounted in the host unit of the machine. In this configuration, when a communication is performed using one machine as a NFC tag and the other machine as the reader/writer, the one machine may operate not via the host unit.
In other words, a user can realize the function without turning on a main power source or manipulating the application. Further, when the bidirectional communication mode is used between the two machines, the communication is performed while operating the host unit to perform a service requested by the communication partner.
When the wireless setting information for a wireless LAN is provided or received between two machines, the NFC communication needs to be performed using the bidirectional communication mode. Further, when the processing that uses the bidirectional communication mode is performed, the NFC communication is performed in a state where the host unit is operated in both machines.
As described above, when the wireless setting information for a wireless LAN is provided or received between two machines, the NFC communication needs to be performed using the bidirectional communication mode. Further, when the processing that uses the bidirectional communication mode is performed, the NFC communication is performed in a state where the host unit is being operated in both machines regardless of the information transferred between the machines.
Therefore, even when the wireless setting information for a wireless LAN is to be provided or received, the host unit is operated regardless of the operations such as image capturing or image exchanging.